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Lowell man charged with beating of 2-year-old girl

By Lisa Redmond, lredmond@lowellsun.com

Updated:
01/31/2013 06:59:14 AM EST

LOWELL -- A 26-year-old Lowell man with a record of child abuse in Minnesota was ordered held on $500,000 cash bail after police allege he broke the back and ribs of his girlfriend's 2-year-old daughter and may have caused her brain damage.

In Lowell Superior Court Monday, Bunthang Ponn, formerly of 18 Walnut St., pleaded not guilty to two counts of assault and battery on a child with substantial injury, and three counts of assault and battery on a child with injury.

During Ponn's district court arraignment last month, prosecutor Kate Cimini described the case as "extremely troubling" due to the violent and serious assault against the 2-year-old child.

Ponn was arrested by Lowell police on Dec. 6 as a result of an investigation into an incident on Nov. 30. On that day the girl was rushed to Lowell General Hospital suffering from what was believed to be a massive stroke associated with brain swelling and she couldn't walk.

Ponn had been taking care of her, Cimini said, and allegedly told his girlfriend the child had fallen out of a high chair and began to shake, Cimini said. Ponn is not the child's biological father.

The child was immediately transferred to Boston Children's Hospital, where she remains hospitalized. Doctors there discovered she had five or six fractured vertebrae, three fractured ribs and swelling of the brain, Cimini said, as well as bruises on her arms, back, chin and neck.

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